


The Damage Is Done

by SixStepsAway



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Destiny Fix-It, F/M, Season 2 Fix-It, fixing all this baloney, season 2 makes more sense this way, which isnt hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-09-30 03:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10152296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SixStepsAway/pseuds/SixStepsAway
Summary: The oculus is destroyed, wiping Leonard Snart right out of time along with it. (au after season 1)





	1. don't fall asleep

**Author's Note:**

> This is also posted on my tumblr, here: http://sixstepsaway.tumblr.com/tagged/%3Bthedamageisdone which is where I post most of my writing nowadays. It gets updated there first.

The oculus blew and all at once it felt like Sara’s heart did too. She didn’t love him (did she?) but it was there: that precursor, that deep feeling of nearly, the soft almost rhythmic extra thump her heart did when his hand brushed hers. 

Maybe with Leonard it was more than that, more than love (she didn’t love him). She felt a lot of things for her team, some were soft and fluffy (Ray, Kendra), some were darker and more powerful, like something tearing at the inside of her chest (Rip) and some were just there, and she trusted them all in the way someone trusts a team to get them out of trouble. 

(Except Rip. Maybe not Rip after what happened with Stein.) 

But with Leonard, it had been different, a different kind of trust. When he held his gun to her she stood her ground, demonstrating implicit and complete trust, the kind he likely didn’t have in himself. 

She trusted he wouldn’t shoot her, whether he knew it or not. 

Had anyone else put a gun to her – Rip, Kendra, even Ray, definitely Mick – she would have fought, prepared to survive or die trying. 

With Leonard, she just stood there. 

Love had never come hard for Sara (harder as she got older, perhaps), she’d loved her high school boyfriend, she’d loved her college girlfriend, she’d loved Oliver, she’d loved Nyssa. It had never been hard to open her heart and accept someone in. 

Trust though, trust had been hard even when she was young, but especially after the island and the League. 

Leonard had earned her trust so fast she hadn’t even seen it coming. 

And now he was dead. 

He died to save them all, to save Mick, to save her. 

No one would ever know but them. 

She walked the halls, not wanting to change her clothes because they smelled like him (she didn’t love him, but the smell was comforting, it was like he was still with her) and sometimes she’d hear an echo of Gideon telling Rip of the progress of the oculus’ destruction, but mostly it was quiet. 

One by one, everyone went to bed. Rip offered her his sympathy, like he knew there was something more between them than just friendship (not love.) and Ray tried to hug her (she dodged, not wanting to taint the smell of him on her clothing, on her skin. Kendra offered words of empathy, and Sara wondered what it felt like to lose a soulmate you’d fallen in love with (she didn’t love him). 

Stein stayed awake the longest and she found herself sitting by his side while he studied something (she asked what, he replied, she forgot) in quiet contemplation. 

A pack of cards sat on the desk and after a while she found herself shuffling them, dealing sets of ten and then shuffling the pack again, repeating in a loop with no one to play with. 

She looked across at Stein and he was asleep and she sighed, dropping the pack on the desk and standing up. 

He jerked awake. “What—Oh.”

“Sorry,” she said, gesturing. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s not like you to make any noise at all,” Stein said. “Is everything all right?” 

She looked at him like he was crazy for a second, before it occurred to her that maybe he’d just never seen how close she and Leonard had become. “I just miss him.” It wasn’t like she was the only one. “I’m sorry for waking you.” 

She turned to go and Stein’s voice chased her. “Miss who?” 

She stopped and looked around. “That’s not funny.” His look was blank and she read him like a book: he was confused, not attempting poor humour or being cruel (she was unsure if he had a cruel bone in his body). “Leonard?”

“Who?” he said. 

Her stomach dropped and she looked at the cards, a buzz of confusion in her head. She’d been shuffling them, but why? 

She fought through fuzz, seeking the answer through a molasses of confusion: Leonard. She’d played cards with him. They’d spent hours in stairwells and on their beds, playing cards, they played— 

She couldn’t remember. 

They played— 

It was a— 

They used— 

It was a card game and she was always beating him by— 

She hit the bridge at a run. “Gideon. Leonard Snart.” 

“Who, Miss Lance?” 

She didn’t have to ask any further questions, she just started running, bolting down the halls until she hit his room and let herself in. 

There was nothing. 

The photo of Lisa was gone, his trinkets were gone, the cold gun she’d put down where he kept it was gone, his parka was gone it was all gone. 

Everything was gone and her memories were going with it bit by bit, she could feel them chipping away at her consciousness and she scratched at them like a cat at a door. Leonard Snart. Blue eyes. They kissed, once, right before he died a hero. They played cards but she couldn’t recall the game no matter how hard she tried. 

She spent too long on that thought, stumbling back to her room and dropping to her bed in exhaustion. She couldn’t stay awake, which made no sense: she had League training, she could stay awake days and not— 

No, she had to focus on the details, she had to hold onto the details. Blue eyes and—what colour was his hair? Blue eyes and—a cold gun. Ice. A parka. She loved that parka. 

Her head hit the pillow although she couldn’t remember when she’d lain down. Her eyes were closing. She didn’t want them to. She knew if she slept it would all slip away and maybe that was why sleep was claiming her with such determination. 

They played cards and he’d held a gun to her and he’d wanted a future with her but she’d said no, angry he’d ever point a gun at her, but she’d wanted to say yes and she’d shown him that before he died a hero. 

They’d kissed just the once. Just once, right before he’d died. She’d kissed him, she’d shown him she wanted a future too, a future for her and for him and for her and him, that she’d loved him too, loved him back. 

She loved him, she’d loved him, Sara Lance had loved Leonard Snart, she had, she’d loved him, she’d loved him she— 

She’d loved him? 

She floated away into black. 


	2. where does it begin?

Not for the first time, she woke with tears staining her cheeks and didn’t move, curled up around a pillow and breathing hard, confused for a moment. She’d never been one to sleep deeply or give in to dreams or nightmares and she didn’t even remember what she’d been dreaming about. 

All she knew was there was a hole in her chest in a shape she couldn’t recall. 

She got out of bed, dressing for her day and making her way through the ship. Her responsibilities had changed since Rip had disappeared, captaincy putting extra pressure on a back she was sure would break if she wasn’t careful. Sometimes she missed the simplicity of bars in Tibet and the ease of Oliver Queen’s orders, even if she’d never taken them without argument.

A time aberration had cropped up in 2017 and Gideon had already put the cogs into motion by the time she reached her chair, moving them towards that point. No one was arguing about going back to Central City, but she wasn’t sure why they would. Stein was always happy to see his daughter and Mick never stopped grumbling about how Central City had the best bars. Any excuse to bring her crew home was good in Sara’s eyes, even if it was an aberration. 

The mission itself went off according to plan. The Legion of Doom (she hated calling them that, it put far too much credit into their stupidity) had screwed up time (again) and they had to put it back together, which unfortunately meant saving the president on a visit to Central City. 

They were halfway back to the ship when Gideon said, “Ms Lance,” she said, “I am detecting a temporal anomaly.” 

Sara stopped in her tracks. “Another aberration?” she said. “Here?” 

“No.” A pause. “A temporal anomaly, as I said.” 

Sara was never sure when Gideon was being sarcastic and when she was being factual. “Where?” 

“I am transferring you the coordinates as we speak.” 

The trek out to the location didn’t take very long and Sara led, closely followed by Ray and Nate. A big open field greeted them, long grass waving in the light breeze and the sun dipping down beneath the horizon over the hill beyond. “I don’t see anything.” 

“The anomaly is right over there, according to this,” Ray said and Sara frowned, striding forth through the grass towards the spot Gideon had specified. 

She found the cause of the anomaly as soon as she got close and her eyes widened as she hurried closer, checking her eyes weren’t deceiving her. 

No, there was definitely a man curled up naked in the grass, seemingly unconscious. 

Without thinking, she whipped her coat off, laying it over his body to cover his exposed skin and scars, and rested her hands on his upper arm. “Gideon, is this the anomaly? This man?” 

“Confirmed, Ms Lance,” the computer said. “He is giving off high levels of temporal radiation and the ship is having difficulty getting a complete lock on him.” 

Sara looked down at him, a frown creasing her forehead. He was older than almost everyone on the ship bar Stein and Mick, she thought, although only his greying hair gave that away, his face, lined as it was with the tells of age, appeared was younger than the rest of his body. “Let’s get him back to the ship.” 

“Is that a good idea?” Ray said. “He could be another Chronos.” 

“I heard that,” was grunted across the comms. 

“I’m just saying,” Ray said, “we don’t know where he came from.” 

“Well, he doesn’t have any weapons on him,” Sara said, the words coming across as far more of a snap than she’d intended. “We’ll keep him under guard, Gideon can have him on lockdown, but he needs medical attention.” 

“Is he hurt?” Ray said. 

“He’s lying naked in a field of flowers,” Nate said, blinking across at Ray. “It’s safe to assume he’s not entirely cognisant even if he’s not injured.” 

“Also a good point,” Ray said. 

Sara sighed down at the man in the grass, refraining from muttering a snarky comment about her teammates to him, and then turned her attention to the comms. “Mick, bring the jump ship and a blanket or two.” 

*** 

Once they got him into the medbay, Sara made sure he was covered by the blankets as much as she could, unsure why she cared so much about a stranger’s modesty, and then hovered at the end of his bed. “Gideon?” 

“He appears to be unharmed, Ms Lance,” Gideon said after a moment of thought. “He is still emitting strong temporal radiation and he is still somewhat displaced in time, however he is in perfect health.” 

“Why isn’t he waking up?” Sara asked. 

“His mind appears to be... elsewhere,” Gideon said. 

Sara swallowed, looking at the man for a moment. He was covered in scars, although none of them were recent or fresh, and there were no bruises on his skin, so he hadn’t been in a fight or hurt by anyone. It crossed her mind that maybe someone had just... dropped him off, leaving him for them to find. 

But why? 

“Will the temporal radiation hurt you, us or the ship, Gideon?” Sara said once she’d dragged herself back out of her thoughts. 

A pause. “No, the radiation is not harmful in any way.” 

Sara let out a breath, looking back at the man. She hadn’t wanted to drop him back off in the field, but she hadn’t realised just how much she didn’t want that until Gideon had confirmed she didn’t have to do it. 

“Let me know if there’s any change,” she said and left the medbay, returning to her room and getting into bed once she’d briefed the crew on the stranger’s condition. As long as he was unconscious and not getting in the way, there was nothing stopping her from sleeping off the long two days she’d had in Central City. 

Nothing except insomnia, it seemed. 

She lay awake, her hands clasped over her stomach and her eyes turned up towards the ceiling, unfocused. She didn’t feel restless, but she wasn’t feeling restful either, so she got back out of bed, roaming the halls. 

Ever since they’d lost Rip and maybe even before she’d taken to walking the Waverider like she could find answers in the feel of her soles against the cold metal. She’d sit at the bottom of stairs in her pyjamas, she’d lean against walls with her bare shoulders icing over against the titanium, and she’d walk and she’d walk until even her well-trained muscles ached and her shoulders started to sag in exhaustion. 

And then she’d find the empty room and she’d fall asleep, curled up in a bed that wasn’t hers, that wasn’t anybody’s. 

A long time ago, when she’d trained with the League, she’d walked halls. She’d roamed the corridors that separated the Assassins from the Trainees, seeing how long she could go before someone caught her. 

It was always Nyssa who caught her. 

She’d sweep Sara into her arms and they’d kiss and Sara would laugh as though the weight of the world wasn’t starting to settle its way onto her shoulders, and then Nyssa would accompany her back to her room where they’d share her warm bed, rather than Sara’s cold one. 

Nights like this on the Waverider she felt claustrophobic rather than free like the flashing stars should make her feel, and curling up on an unoccupied bed in a dark room with the curtains wide and the lights dim didn’t make her feel any less trapped or make her chest ache any less. 

She always found the hole in her heart that missed Nyssa where she wrapped up around nobody’s pillow in the dark, the hole that mourned Laurel as though she’d lost a limb of her very own, and the hole that didn’t belong, the one that left her waking stained with tears when even Laurel’s death didn’t. 

She fell asleep with her legs tucked up against the outer bulkhead and the pillow clutched in her arms. She felt childish, glad that no one knew where to find her, ashamed of the inner workings of her cracked and broken soul, but it helped and before long she fell into a dreamless sleep. 

“Ms Lance.” Gideon’s voice woke her, but she didn’t know how long it had been. “The temporal anomaly is awake.” 

She bolted upright, discarding the pillow, and then paused. “Is that what we’re calling him?” 

“He does not have a name, Ms Lance,” Gideon said. 

That was true, he didn’t. “You’re not wrong, Gideon,” Sara said, and headed to the medbay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, chapters will be posted on my tumblr before anywhere else for my own sanity's sake (Ao3 always gives me issues), which is over here: http://sixstepsaway.tumblr.com/


	3. do we have any new information?

Upon stepping through the doorway into the medbay, the first thing Sara noticed was that the man in the bed was sitting on the edge of the bed. He’d been given pants and a shirt, although it hung loosely off his chest, making him look far skinnier than she knew he was, and he was looking as confused as she felt.

“You’re awake,” she said, stating the obvious to draw his attention from examining his own arms to her presence in the room. Whoever had been in here before her had vacated, presumably to leave him privacy to pull clothes on, so she thought it was only fair to make sure he knew he was no longer alone. 

“Apparently,” he said, the word coming out more as a drawl than simply spoken. She wondered if it was a front, some kind of defence mechanism, or just the way he spoke. He looked around at her. “I assume you’re the one that--” He waved a hand. “-- _rescued_ me?” 

“You’re welcome,” she said and ambled closer, arms folded across her chest and back straight. “Now you’re awake, I’d like to know who you are.” 

“As would I,” he said and raised an eyebrow over at her, a smirk on his lips. 

Defence mechanism. He was posturing, putting as much confidence into his demeanour and tone as he could, despite the fact she’d found him naked in a field and he didn’t know anything about himself. 

She believed that, and that was more confusing than the naked in a field part. 

“I’m afraid,” he said, getting to his feet beside the bed, “I don’t remember anything.” 

“Nothing?” she said. “You don’t know how you got in that field?” 

“Nope.” He popped the ‘p’ sound and she studied him and his smirk. 

She kept her arms folded, legs slightly spread for a braced stance in case he tried to attack her, although she wasn’t sure why he would. “Well, I’m Sara,” she said. “We picked you up because you were--” She wasn’t sure how to put it exactly. “Well.” 

“Well?” he said and she became aware of the fact he was studying her as intensely as she was studying him. 

“You were giving off a strange temporal signature,” she said. For a moment, she’d thought it might be Rip, but no. “Radiation of some kind.”  
“I’m irradiated?” he said. A pause. “What do you mean a strange temporal signature?” He looked around and she watched as he took in his environment properly for the first time: bulkheads, metal panels, lights from all directions, and all the futuristic tech his confused mind could handle, she was sure, and-- “This is a timeship?” 

The question caught her off guard and she looked at him in surprise. “You know about timeships?” 

He looked right back at her. “Apparently.” 

“What else do you know?” she said. 

“You’ll have to be more specific.” He seemed to be at a loss of what to do with his hands, unwilling to mimic her gesture of folded arms. “I know a lot of things, I know that’s metal and this is plastic and I know I’m wearing cloth, but I don’t seem to know anything else. The brand of the shirt, for example, or my own name.” 

“You don’t know your own name.” She’d already gleaned that from his statement of wanting to know who he was, but the confirmation was good. “Do you know where you got your scars?” 

His body stiffened a small amount, the kind most would miss if they weren’t paying attention. Sara always paid attention. “No.” 

He didn’t seem to be lying, he exhibited none of the tells of a liar, but she wasn’t one to trust blindly. She opened her mouth to question him further, but before she could the door opened and Stein walked in, followed by Jax and Ray. 

“Ah!” Stein said, looking between them. “Gideon said you were in here. We gave him a change of clothes and something to drink. We weren’t sure if you’d want him in a holding cell or just kept in here rather than allowed to roam the ship, since we don’t know anything about him.” 

“I _am_ in the room,” the man drawled. 

“Oh, yes, of course.” Stein looked over at him, blinking a couple of times. “A pleasure to meet you.” 

“M _hmmmm_ ,” the man said, and looked back to Sara. “I presume this makes you the captain?” 

“Is that a surprise?” she said. She’d grown accustomed to encountering resistance whenever she introduced herself as captain to men, no matter what era she landed in. 

“Not at all,” he said, a smirk on his face. “Someone has to keep these fools in line.” 

“Hey!” Ray said from behind Jax. 

“He’s baiting us,” Jax said. “Relax.”

“Do we have any new information about who he is?” Stein asked, looking to Sara. 

She shook her head. “He seems to have no memories, although he knows about timeships. He doesn’t remember his own name or anything about himself.” 

“I imagine he must be from a time when timeships are commonplace!” Stein said. “Quite fascinating, really.” Sara’s lips twitched, as did the stranger’s. “Similar to how someone from _our_ time might forget who they are but not - for example - what a microwave is, although perhaps not how to use one.” 

“Open door, insert hot pocket, dial in numbers, wait for it to explode,” the man said. “I can use a microwave.” 

“Guess we’ll put you on kitchen duty then,” Ray said, then furrowed his brow. “Although maybe not if you explode the microwave.” 

The stranger cut his eyes across to Ray, then back to Sara. 

They were all waiting for her to make a decision as to what to do with him, so she let out a sigh. “We’ll have Gideon keep track of him but until we figure out what he is--” She ignored his look of offence. “--and why he’s here--” She continued to ignore his scowl. “--I don’t see why he can’t wander the ship under supervision. We can give him somewhere to sleep. It’s not like we can dump him back in twenty-seventeen unattended.” 

“I’m touched by how much you care,” he said. 

She ignored him. “Gideon, please keep track of the time anomaly while he’s on board. Restrict sensitive areas of the ship and computer.” 

“Of course, Captain,” Gideon said. 

If he was surprised by the disembodied voice, he didn’t show it. He did however scowl. “The time anomaly?” 

“Would you prefer _the source of the radiation?_ ” Sara said. 

It was his turn to ignore her and she snorted. “We have a fabricator, you can get some clothes that suit you better there, Jax will show you. And until we figure out what to do with you, you can stay on the ship.” 

She kept her hesitance hidden: there was only one empty room that wasn’t the captain’s quarters. Although it had crossed her mind to move in there, she hadn’t gotten around to accepting Rip might not be coming back yet, nor had she accepted the thought that if he did she might not be happy to hand his ship back to him. The only room left for him to stay in was the empty one, the one she gravitated to whenever she couldn’t sleep. 

It almost crossed her mind to swap rooms with that one and give him hers. 

“Ray can show you to the empty room,” she said and nodded. 

“All right.” She wasn’t sure if she’d expected a thank you, but she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t get one. 

Awkwardness settled over the group and she lowered her arms from her chest, looking between them for a moment before letting out a sigh. “Stein, see what you can gather from the scans Gideon ran on the time anomaly--” She did not look at the expression on the stranger’s face that clearly read _really?_ “--and let me know. Jax, take him so he can get some clothes that actually fit.” 

She turned her head and the stranger was just _looking at her_ in some cross between offence and utter amusement. 

She ignored him and left the room, abandoning the others to introduce him to the fabricator while she cleared up the evidence she’d been sleeping in the spare quarters. 

It only took her a few minutes to pick up all her things, shoving them into a bag, and then she turned and-- Damnit. 

He was in the doorway, clothes folded over one arm, a bag in the other and his eyebrow raised, shoulder leaning against the frame. 

A sense of overwhelming familiarity hit her like a punch to the gut and she swallowed hard rather than speaking.

“I can sleep elsewhere,” he said, and before she could say anything more he continued with, “I’m sure there’s a warm patch of engine room with my name on it if I’m invading your second set of quarters.” He gestured. “I assume these _aren’t_ yours.” 

She scowled at him. “I have problems sleeping,” she said. She paused. “Where’s Ray?” 

“I ditched him somewhere near the galley,” he said. “He was determined to show me every corner of the ship when all I wanted to do was change into something less...” He looked down at himself. 

“Linen,” she supplied, at the same moment he said, “White.” 

Her lips twitched and she held onto her collection of items. “Do you have something against white?” 

“Only on myself,” he said. “When I got my hands on the fabricator, I ended up picking this.” He held up a jacket, shirt and slim jeans, all of which were dark colours. “Jax--” He said the name warily, as though he was unsure he’d remembered it correctly, and she nodded he was right. “--said I should pick a few outfits to rotate so...” He waved the bag. “I followed my instinct.” 

She held her hand out for the bag. “May I?” 

He hesitated for a second, then handed it over. “It hasn’t exactly enlightened me as to who I am.” 

She took the bag over to the bed, emptying out the contents and looking it over. He’d picked almost exact same items over and over again: dark shirts with varying heights of neck, but always long-sleeved; jeans that were never anything less than snug (she had to admit he was good looking and she somewhat dreaded having to see him in those and force herself to not stare); a couple of lighter coloured undershirts; and-- 

She picked up a skirt and looked it over for a moment, cutting her eyes across to him. He ambled over, leaning against the bed. “It goes with this.” He held up one of the tightest pairs of pants and she took the sight of the two items in, wondering if this was another future thing.

“Fashionable.” She put the skirt down and looked the clothing pile over. “You don’t seem to like showing skin.” 

He looked at her, surprise in his blue eyes, and she shrugged. “Long-sleeves, a skirt--”

“Kilt,” he said.

“--a skirt that goes with leggings--” 

“Pants.” 

She looked at him and rolled her eyes, refusing to relent. “Long sleeves, turtlenecks, a skirt that only goes with leggings,” she said. “You don’t like showing skin.” 

“Scars,” was all he said and she looked back at the clothes. She had her own scars, but she didn’t mind having bare arms or her shirts riding up on occasion, and yet she’d known to cover him the second she found him. 

She didn’t say that. 

“You don’t know where those came from though,” she said and turned her gaze back to him. He was slightly lower than her, reclining against the bed that, she supposed, was his now. “The scars, I mean, not the skirt.” 

Amusement glittered in his eyes. “Kilt.” 

“Skirt.” She turned around, leaning her lower back against the bed. She’d been sleeping on it for weeks, but now she didn’t want to invade what was now his bed by sitting on it. 

“Scotland, as far as I know,” he said. 

“So you remember history.” She looked over at him. “Unless you mean you’re Scottish.” 

“Do I _sound_ Scottish?” he asked. 

She shook her head. “I asked Gideon,” she said. “On the way to the medbay I asked Gideon who you were.” 

“And who am I?” he said. 

“She said there’s no one fitting your temporal signature, nor your specific DNA marker, throughout all of history.” 

“I’m unique,” he said, although there was something she couldn’t pin down behind his eyes. 

She looked at him. “You don’t exist.”

“If I didn’t exist, you could keep this room,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes and pushed off from the bed, reacquiring her items and looking around at him. “If you need anything--” 

“I’ll come and find you,” he said, looking across at her. 

Despite that being exactly the sentiment she’d been planning to convey, she smirked at him. “I was going to say Ray will be happy to assist.” 

“Mmm, _pass_ ,” he said, smirking right back at her. 

She stepped out of the room, letting the door swish closed behind her, and came to a dead stop in the hallway, taking a few deep, steadying breaths and clutching her items in her arms. 

The sense of familiarity had been overwhelming, and now she’d left the room all she was left with was the question of why and - more importantly - _how_ a man who didn’t exist settled such a feeling of warmth and trust in her chest. 

She was stronger than whatever was going on though, she was sure of that, and whatever his plan was, whatever his agenda, if it endangered her crew she wouldn’t hesitate to stop it and - quite probably - him. 

She scrubbed a hand over her face, held her items a little tighter, and made her way to the bridge, only stopping to throw her stuff into her room on the way, determined to figure out and stop whatever was going on.


	4. is it required?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking a while, I just wasn't feeling it until this latest episode, and now I'm *really* feeling it.

He fit in with the team like he belonged there. 

There wasn’t much they could do with him, a naked traveller from god knows where (or, more importantly, when) so they kept him. 

“Like a pet?” he drawled, leaning in the doorway where he’d overheard their conversation from. “I’m not sure how I feel about being your dog.” 

“I’m not giving him belly rubs,” Mick said, a beer put to his lips. “I don’t pet Temporal Anomalies.” 

“We can’t keep calling him that,” Nate said with a sigh. “He’s – y’know! – a person, as far as I can tell.” He looked over at the man in the doorway. “Seems person-y.” 

“He’s a person,” Sara said, a little quicker than she’d like. So what if she’d been getting to know him a little? It wasn’t fair to treat him like an object or a dog. 

“So what do we call him?” Ray said. “Peter? Walter?” Sara cut her eyes over to him and he shrank a tiny bit. “Tinkerbell?”

“Could just ask him what name he’d like,” Mick said, quiet almost like he thought they’d ignore him. 

“Good point,” Sara said. She looked across at the Temporal Anomaly. “Well… What should we call you? Do you want to pick a name?” 

He considered that for a moment, then sauntered across, sitting down and taking Mick’s beer right out of his hands. Ray’s jaw dropped. Nate stared. Amaya stayed quiet, but looked between the two men, her hand creeping for her pendant. “Do I need one?” he asked, like he hadn’t just stolen Mick’s beer. 

He took a swig. Mick stared at him, torn between confusion over what he’d just done and confusion over how angry he wasn’t. 

“We can hardly continue calling you the Temporal Anomaly,” Amaya said. 

“Why not?” The man shrugged and took another sip, then offered the bottle to Sara, where she was sitting just across from him. 

Mick tracked the bottle with his eyes as Sara took it and drank. Ray squeaked a couple of times. 

“It—I mean—” Nate stammered. 

“I _like it_ ,” the anomaly stated. “It’s enigmatic. Mysterious. Frightening.” 

“You think Temporal Anomaly is frightening?” Mick said, taking his bottle when Sara offered it to him. 

“Do you think Heatwave is?” the anomaly asked, no hint of malice in his tone. “Are you going to tan everyone to death?” 

Sara tensed, but to her surprise (and his), Mick let out a laugh. “I might just do that.” 

“Then—Then it’s settled,” Ray stammered. “We just call him Temporal Anomaly.” 

“Until we figure out who he is at least,” Sara said, looking across at the anomaly. “Just because we’re letting you stay, that doesn’t mean we trust you.” 

“Noted,” the anomaly said, and sipped Mick’s beer. 

*** 

The only thing that was really off about the anomaly (Sara felt weird calling him that) so far was that she’d noticed things would go missing and then reappear. 

For example, Mick, the one day, couldn’t find his sweater. It seemed like a small thing and she was sure he hadn’t taken it off in 1901 the day before, but he couldn’t find it regardless. 

Next day, it showed up. 

Then Nate’s history book went missing. Mick asked how he could tell, considering how many he’d scrounged back to his room, but it was definitely gone. 

Until it wasn’t. 

The pattern repeated: one of Amaya’s bracelets, Ray’s screwdriver, Steins glasses for a whole day, Jax’s music player, a comb from Sara’s dresser. They all went missing and then reappeared. 

And she knew why. 

Amaya wasn’t trained. Mick wasn’t observant. Ray was oblivious. Stein was distracted. Jax was young. 

Sara, on the other hand, was league of assassins. She had perfected the art of stealth, both in being unseen and seeing the unseen. 

“Gideon, has anything changed with this item?” she asked of her comb, placing it in a scanner. 

“No, Captain Lance,” Gideon said. “It is as it should be.” 

She hadn’t thought it would be different, but it was best to be sure. She liked Barry Allen, but she wasn’t as trusting as the man who kept inviting traitors in for dinner. 

Had her comb and Mick’s sweater and all the other items _stayed_ missing, she’d think that the anomaly was just a thief, stealing for the sake of taking and having, or even trying to hurt them, but nothing precious had been taken (her comb had sat between a photo of Laurel and another of Oliver, next to Laurel’s favourite gold ring, and an arrow necklace with an emerald cut into it that reminded her of Oliver, even if she’d never wear it out) and all the items had been returned to where they’d been taken from within a day or two. 

Which meant he enjoyed the challenge. 

Stealing Stein’s glasses had meant sneaking into his quarters and taking them while he slept. Jax’s music player had been in his pocket. Ray’s screwdriver most likely under his nose. 

Her comb had been in her room, locked tight and inaccessible. 

And yet, he’d acquired it. 

He liked the challenge more than the _having_ , it seemed. He didn’t want her comb or Mick’s sweater, he wanted to know he could take it without anyone knowing what he’d done. 

It was possible returning it was a point of pride too. 

She didn’t say anything to him. She let her combs go missing, an occasional broach be lifted, and kept an eye out for any sign of pickpocketing or theft that could cause damage to her ship or crew, and she bided her time. 

A good opportunity to use what she’d figured out showed up a few weeks later. 

The man who’d killed her sister, the man who’d killed her, and the man Barry Allen had mistakenly thought of as a friend, had teamed up to try and end the world. 

She’d be more concerned if she had much more left to lose. 

But as it was she just had a mission to focus on and this time it was stealing an amulet from a museum before the legion of doom (she hated Nate for that name) could steal it first. 

“I suppose we could rig the alarm system to not go off,” Ray said, wrinkling his brow up. “It’s higher tech than I’m used to though.” 

She looked up from the blueprints displayed on the bridge table and across the room at the anomaly. He looked bored, but he’d also been sneaking peeks at the display the whole time they’d been discussing. 

“You,” she said. “Anomaly.” He looked around, lowering his foot from the seat beside his own. “What would _your_ plan of attack be?” 

It was like she’d put a new battery into him. He bounced out of the chair, a spring in his step, and sauntered across, leaning down on his forearms on the display and taking a moment to take in all the close details. 

When Ray spoke, she raised a hand, shushing him and letting the anomaly she’d grown so fascinated by focus. 

After a few minutes, he pointed at the blueprint. “There’s a flaw in the system,” he said. “The alarm is set up to detect people entering but not exiting.” 

Sara looked across at him. “If we could get in, we wouldn’t have a problem.” 

His lips twitched in an amused smile and he looked back at her. “True,” he said, “but we don’t need to be in to exit.” When no one followed his train of thought, he sighed and swiped his fingers across the displays, pulling up information on the staff. “True, it’s a mostly contained facility and there’s not a lot of traffic, but there is this.” A woman’s face flashed up on the screen. 

“Who is that?” Ray asked. 

“That,” the anomaly said, “is the next person to take a vacation.” 

Sara frowned. “How do you know that?” 

He pulled other documents over, the ones he’d flitted through while she’d watched him study the information. She’d been so preoccupied with the furrow in his brow and the way his blue eyes sparkled, she hadn’t paid much attention to exactly what he was studying. 

A spreadsheet filled the display: named were listed, along with dates and times. The columns weren’t labelled and Sara frowned. “I don’t understand.” 

“It’s a ledger,” the anomaly said and when she looked at him he sighed again and put his finger to the top left cell, moving it along the columns as he labelled them himself. “Name, date of employ, security clearance level – we’re going to need a seven or higher for this – and then after that the date of out of house vacation.” 

“How do you know that’s what those dates are?” Sara asked, frowning. 

“They each start one week before the next,” he said, pointing. “There’s twenty-one members of staff and twenty positions.” 

“So they rotate,” Mick said, leaning against the table. 

“Exactly.” The anomaly leant back. 

“So what do we do?” Sara said. “Swipe her credentials when she leaves and enter with them?” 

The anomaly looked across at her. “Nothing so pedestrian. Plus, do you not think that a guard on vacation re-entering the high-security building might cause alarms?” 

“I suppose it might,” Sara said, more of a drawl to match his than she’d like. “So what do we do instead?” 

“One of us – _probably_ the highly trained assassin who knows how to remain unseen – waits just outside the door and places a wedge to stop the door from closing,” he said. “We’ll have fifty-nine seconds to make it into the house before the alarms sound for the door being open too long.” 

“We can’t just go in there?” Nate said. 

The anomaly looked across at him. “We’re still going to need her credentials to access things _within_ the house.” He gestured at the system. “The alarms aren’t hooked up to detect a card that shouldn’t be in there, because the understanding is that no one can get in with that card anyway.” 

Sara nodded. “So what’s the plan?” 

A moment passed in silence and she let it without complaint, and then the anomaly straightened up. “I’ll wait outside the gates,” he said. “I’ll walk by as she passes, pickpocket the card and meet you at the door. We’ll go in together, use your talents to avoid security within the house, and find the item. Then we leave.” 

She took a moment to look for flaws in the plan, but she had to admit he seemed to know what he was talking about. “Agreed,” she said. “We’ll go tonight.” 

He stepped away from the table. “Do you have thieves’ tools?” he asked. “Lock picks, gloves, things like that?” 

“The fabricator can create those things,” Sara said with a nod. “I’ll show you.” 

She led the way through the ship, the anomaly trailing along in her wake, and when she reached the fabricator she stopped, plugging in the request for objects rather than clothing and gesturing. “Gideon has to know what she’s creating, but after that it’s pretty simple to get what you want. You can program in your own items too.” 

He pondered the display for a moment and she watched as he collected lock picks and a variety of other tools from broken credit cards to small strips of metal and even a razorblade or two. She was sure she should want to take blades off him, but if they were going to trust him on their ship and with their heist, they had to trust him with weapons eventually. 

When he didn’t turn away from the fabricator even when he’d filled a small bag with things he needed and seemed done, she tilted her head. “What is it?” 

“Nothing,” he said, and looked over at her. When she kept her frown firmly in place he sighed. “Just something scratching at the back of my head.” He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out eventually.” 

She nodded and leant against the wall. “So theft.” 

The fractional stiffening of his spine told her what she wanted to know: she’d been right, he was the sneaky thief in the night that kept displacing their stuff, and he knew she knew it now too. “Apparently.” 

“You’re good at it,” she said. “I’m impressed.” 

“I have you know I’m _excellent_ at it,” he said, looking over at her, smirk stuck to his mouth. “At least, I think I am.” A frown passed over his forehead and he shrugged, closing the fabricator and taking a step back. “I suppose we’ll find out tonight.” 

“I suppose we will.” She smiled at him, watching as he headed for the door, then rolled her eyes, noticing a distinct change in a small weight on her body. “Anomaly.” 

He looked around and she held her hand out towards him, palm up.  For a moment, she thought he was going to misunderstand and take it, but then he snorted under his breath and retrieved one of her ceramic knives from the front of his pants, dropping it into her palm. “I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for your stupid assassin senses.” 

“Keep telling yourself that,” she said with amusement in her tone, and tucked it away.


End file.
